Archive of entries posted on November 2012

For some reason there’s an old song I learned at school more than 35 years ago, whose tune and lyrics I can still remember. It goes like this: I hear echoes that are dear to me that whisper oh so sweetly to my heart You must come, come to those you love across the sea …

I’ve added a new JavaScript 4K page will host JavaScript games that are contained in one html file which is no larger than 4K. This is an even more difficult constraint than the Java 4K challenge since the Java files are in compiled bytecode whereas Javascript is at most minified source code. The gallery currently …

The ITU did not create the Internet. There was no way it could. The Internet could only be created by engineers who celebrate freedom, openness, sharing, curiosity, innovation and even humor – values that have made the Internet what it is, and which the ITU lacks. As an engineer, this comes across in a striking …

Suppose you have a page at http://www.example.com/mypage.php?ab=38 but you want people or bots that access it to see this page instead: http://www.example.com/mypage.php?ab=38&cd=39 By the way, this is not some constrained example – it is from a real production site where the owner has little control over the PHP code. It took a bit of experimenting …

I’m going to make three predictions today: Cloud vs. PC: The PC is not going to fade into insignificance in the near (1-2 years) or more distant (3-10 years) future. Tablet/Mobile vs. PC: See above. Cross platform development tools are going to rise in popularity. You are welcome to come back anytime during the next …

I once created a site that shows you interesting things that happened a round number of days ago. You can also check when you special day birthday is, for example, at what date do you turn to be 17000 days old ? Although the site even made the news once, I didn’t bother to maintain …

When I moved from Windows being my default OS to Ubuntu Linux, the thing that I missed the most was Total Commander. Over the years it got so that if I ever found myself on a computer that didn’t have it, I could immediately feel my productivity getting a hit. On Ubuntu, I used Gnome …

Constraint programming can get some getting used to. In the usual programming frame of mind (whether with functional or imperative languages) you think of the algorithm and specify to the computer, via your code, exactly what steps to go through in order to solve the problem. With constraint programming, you don’t tell the computer what …

Constraint programming is a field that is about solving problems where you have to find a solution in a (usually large) search space given specific constraints. A classic problem of this sort is the eight queens puzzle. There are quite a few good constraint program libraries, among them are java based Choco and C++ based …

Before writing a minimal sample for some technology, I usually take the time to see if there already exist one on the net. For a simple example that illustrates how to combine Qt and OpenCV I found the following post. Just download the project at the end of that post. This post explains compiling the …